Apple Hikes iPhone and Watch Prices in India Yet Again

Last week, as part of the annual Union Budget revision, the Indian government had announced that it is raising custom duties on imported phones. Today, we have the first major repercussion from none other than Apple. The Cupertino phone maker has yet again hiked prices for its iPhone and smartwatches across all segments. Like before, the iPhone SE won’t be affected by this alteration as it’s currently being locally manufactured. The changes are effective starting today, 5th February.

The majority of iPhones will sustain a surge of roughly Rs 2,000 or 3% depending on their current price. It’s worth noting that, as per our retailer sources, this will affect only the MRP of these smartphones and not the market price. Hence, you should be able to still purchase iPhones at a much lower cost on online as well as offline stores. The premium iPhone X will be now sold at an even higher sum, Rs 95,390 (previously Rs 92,430) for the 64GB variant and Rs 1,08,930 (previously 1,05,720) for the 256GB version.

The iPhone 7 now starts at Rs 52,370 (before, Rs 51,080) and goes all the way up to Rs 61,560 (from Rs 59,910) for the 128GB variant. The iPhone 8, on the other hand, is now priced at Rs 67,940 (before Rs 66,120) for 32GB and Rs 81,500 (before Rs 79420) for 128GB. The Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS, 38mm) now comes with an MRP of 32,380, up from Rs. 29,900. The 42mm edition of the same is priced at Rs. 34,410, up from Rs. 31,900. The company has updated the official product pages as well to reflect the new changes.

Incidentally, Apple had bumped iPhone prices back in December as well when the government hiked the custom duty from 10% to 15%. The company has been struggling to establish a strong foothold in India due to a series of hurdles such as pending government approvals and tax requests. The hike is primarily to promote the Prime Minister’s “Make in India” programme which encourages manufacturers to set up domestic plants. A range of smartphone OEMs such as Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo and others have already set up multiple manufacturing factories in India.

Shubham Agarwal Author Shubham started as an intern with Technology Personalized and later graduated to be a full-time author. He dabs with both features and news posts. Currently based out of Bangalore, Shubham holds an engineering degree in Computer Science, while specializing in mobile applications.